Saturday, August 25, 2012

My three girls, Madeline, Grace and Frances, participated in the Color Run in Philadelphia in early July. The Color Run is a 3.1 mile (5K) in which at various points in the race the runners are painted with powdered color.
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Clean and white

Participants are required to wear white. So the girls wore matching outfits.

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First color pink

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Post pink

It was a beautiful day in Philadelphia. The event began and ended in front of the Art Museum. A heat wave was upon us, so the organizers decided to start the race at 7 AM instead of 8:30AM. Since the train from our area doesn't run that early on a Sunday we had John and Henry drop us off near the start .
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Last color yellow

Eakins Oval was jammed with runners - over 24,000! Each group of 500 was sent off in waves about 3 minutes apart.

Almost finished

When the girls finally took off I ended up running alongside for the first mile to take photos. Then I doubled back and ran from the finish to mile 2 for more photos. It was a kaleidoscope of color!

Into the crowd of color after the race

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿At the finish each runner had a packet of color that they threw into the crowd. The girls were covered in color by the end. ﻿﻿﻿﻿ ﻿﻿

Philadelphia Museum of Art

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Multi-colored hair

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Frances sweating color

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Grace in living color

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Madeline's super white teeth

﻿﻿Our plan was to take the train home. Thankfully the girls weren't the only Color-Runners on the train. We received lots of starnge looks. Upon exiting our seats, I noticed a heavy dusting of color was left behind!

Sunday, August 19, 2012

We had another fantastic vacation at Beach Pond! The week flew by. The weather was beautiful - warm and sunny almost everyday we were there. The kids spent hours with their cousins - swimming, kayaking, and hanging out on the floating dock.

It was nice to see so many of the cousins and aunts, uncles, etc. Everyone seemed to get along great, creating their own forms of entertainment.

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Jumping off the cliffs was a must for all the kids - the higher the better!

July 2012 was a very busy month. Swim team with the Darley Dragons was in full swing with Grace, Frances and Henry all swimming. Henry had improved so much that the team had him swimming up an age with the 8 year olds. He did very well at championships finishing 8th overall in freestyle and 18th overall in 8 and under breaststroke. Frances and Grace also did well at champs. Frances took 6th in breaststroke, 10th in the IM and both her medley and free relays came in 8th. Grace was limited in her strokes due to her shoulder issues. Although she did not place (the 18 & under bracket is the largest and arguably the most difficult bracket to swim in), she did do well in both the 100 free and the 50 breaststroke.

Frances had an amazing year in softball as well. Her 12 and under Chichester Thunder Travel team came in first place in the DelVal "A" Division. Her team had an undefeated season going 17-0 with 3 shutouts. Frances pitched in the championship game with no walks.

Meg's croaker

My first fish!

In late July, I finally took my mom on the promised deep sea fishing trip. Meg and Agnes came along too. We drove to Wildwood, NJ and signed up for Ladies Day on a boat called the Royal Flush. The trip was really fun. The crew took good care of us - showing us how to use our poles, providing bait and even removing our fish from the hooks. Meg caught the only keeper, a croaker. The crew even cleaned and filleted her fish. The water was a bit rough at times. Agnes caught a very small shark and a king fish. I caught a couple of weakies. Mom caught a croaker too. After the 4 hour trip, we headed to the beach and walked out to the ocean. We had a delicious seafood dinner at Urie's before heading home.